Duku Joel, Damaturu
THE recent allocation of over 200 billion naira for road projects in the 2020 budget is a clear indication that the federal government wants to change the narrative of the tales of bad highways in the country.
Even with that whooping allocation, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has maintained that the money is not enough to fund road projects in the country.
The ministry in its wisdom has therefore resolved not to embark on new projects until the old ones are completed.
Prior to this year’s huge budgetary allocation to works, experts said the funding has been inadequate thus causing serious dearth in the sector.
In Yobe State for instance, the past administration has even moved ahead to construct some federal roads like part of the Damaturu road. The Yobe State Government has constructed about 77 kilometers of the road from Damaturu Madza boarder town and the remaining 54km of the road to Biu is a nightmare.
The substantial portion of Nguru -Gashua road is still in very bad shape.
Below are some of the federal roads in Yobe:
Potiskum Kyari- Bauchi Road; Buachi road is in use.
Kaliyari- Damaturu road is just awarded by the Federal Government but we observed that the contractor was yet to mobilise to site as at the time of filing in this report.
As for Kano Potiskum Damaturu Maiduguri dualization, the section 4 (Potiskum-Damaturu) is 78% completed.
Damaturu- Biu Road is about 77 kilometers constructed by Yobe State Government but the remaining 54 km is still in very bad shape.
Gashua/Bayari- phase I and II are being handled by RRC and ECECC.
Potiskum Ngalda Gombe border Road is undergoing emergency repairs while the Nguru Gashua Road phase of the project has been completed. Also, the second phase, which is being handled by mother cat, is ongoing.
We observed that Potiskum Jakusko/Gashua is also undergoing emergency repairs by Kawagarbo Construction and M Contractors.
The dualization of Kano-Maiduguri road project is sub-divided into five sections, the Potiskum-Damaturu is section IV and it starts from Potiskum Junction linking Mamudo, Damagum, Garin Bingel, Dogon Kuka and Ngelzarma to Damaturu.
When The Nation visited the site of the project in Damaturu, construction work from Potiskum to Damaturu was almost completed from the N4 billion SUKUK funding from the Federal Government except the bypass in Damaturu and the two roundabouts in Damaturu. In Potiskum however, the bypass is completed and is being put in use.
An Engineer supervising the section of the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told our correspondent that the initial project has a total of 96.240 kilometers but, the federal government later approved a length of 18km out of Damaturu and Potiskum bypasses to be included in the project.
“The project started in 2006 and the substantial completion date of the project was 10th December 2013 but here we are today with the Boko Haram crisis and the paucity of funds and other issues surrounding the project.
If you go further at the Maiduguri section of the road, the project was completely abandoned due to the Boko Haram wahala. Though work has resumed from that side, the security of the area is very uncertain,” he said.
The Nation gathered that the Kano/Maiduguri highway dualization project, awarded in 2006 by the then Obasanjo administration stretching over 500 kilometres from linking two major geo-political zones of the northwest and the northeast. The project links Kano to Jigawa in the North West, Bauchi, Yobe and Borno states to the northeast.
The project is divided into five sections with five different contractors executing each of the sections.
Section A covers Kano-Kiyawa in Jigawa State, B covers Kiyawa-Azare in Bauchi State, C covers Azare-Potiskum in Yobe State while sections D and E cover Potiskum-Damaturu and Damaturu-Maiduguri respectively.
Speaking on the state of some federal roads in Yobe State, the Controller, Federal Ministry of Works, Yobe, Engr. Akinmade Babalola, said some emergency repairs were recently carried out on some of the roads.
He noted that Yobe has about 15 federal roads stretching to 883.4 kilometers in the state.
“We have just completed some emergency repairs on the following federal roads in Yobe State: Damaturu to Gashua, Gashua to Nguru as well as from Potiskum to Ngalda border in Gombe State”, Babalola disclosed.
While praising the efforts of the federal government to change the narrative in the road infrastructure of the country, the Federal Controller however called for more funding. He attributed the dearth in the sector to inadequate budgetary allocations over the years.
Babalola however said insecurity is no longer a challenge as Yobe is at the moment enjoying peace.
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